Bishop Guertin girls basketball stifles Londonderry to return to D1 title game
KINGSTON – The Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team knows if it can play its typical brand of defense, it can work through whatever struggles might be going on with the offense.
That was the case in Thursday’s Division I semifinal against Londonderry.
After jumping out to an early lead, Bishop Guertin stumbled a bit on the offensive end, but held Londonderry to single digits in the first half on the way to a 54-25 win over the Lancers at Sanborn Regional High School. The Cardinals will make their fifth-straight appearance in the D1 final when they take on Bedford at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Eight players scored for Bishop Guertin (18-0), led by Olivia Murray, who finished with 18 points, and Catelyn Wheeler, who was also in double figures with 11. Meghan Stack added nine points and Brooke Paquette finished with eight, and all four players had at least one 3-pointer for the Cardinals.
“Games like this are rarely works of art offensively,” Bishop Guertin coach Brad Kreick said. “If we can rely on being sound defensively and getting stops possession in and possession out, that’s the kind of stiff that will allow you to be a little sloppy or off your game offensively and still have a shot to win games.”
Oliva Chau and Shannon Ball each had seven points to lead Londonderry while Ashley Rourke and Sarah Clegg added four points a piece.
Londonderry (6-10) got its first basket with 6:27 left in the first quarter, but by then, the Lancers were already down 7-2. Although the Cardinals scored just five points over the rest of the quarter, Londonderry didn’t score and trailed 12-2 after one.
Murray got Bishop Guertin’s offense going early in the second quarter, scoring five points, and Stack scored seven points in the final five-plus minutes of the half to give the Cardinals a 25-9 lead going into the break.
“There were a lot of nerves,” Paquette said. “It’s a semifinal game. Londonderry beat Windham (in the quarterfinals), so anything can happen. We knew that. We had to put them away quick.”
Despite having reached the semifinals in each of the last six years, no one on the Cardinals’ roster had played in a final four game, as the season was canceled last year due to COVID-19 before that round could be played.
“That’s always going to sting a little bit,” Kreick said. “This group doesn’t have a lot of experience in final fours. Neither of us have any experience in a state championship game. We’ve got 18 games in and we’re grateful to play a 19th.
“I think we saw some of the nerves early, particularly in the first quarter. Not so much defensively, but offensively, we just didn’t execute real well. I think having a game under our belts is going to do us a world of good.”
